Posted!

Join the Conversation

Comments

Welcome to our new and improved comments, which are for subscribers only.
This is a test to see whether we can improve the experience for you.
You do not need a Facebook profile to participate.

You will need to register before adding a comment.
Typed comments will be lost if you are not logged in.

Please be polite.
It's OK to disagree with someone's ideas, but personal attacks, insults, threats, hate speech, advocating violence and other violations can result in a ban.
If you see comments in violation of our community guidelines, please report them.

A confidential informant testifying in the case against alleged gang members in Fort Myers broke down on the stand numerous times Wednesday morning.

The woman was the last person jurors heard from late Tuesday after she spent about four hours in the Lee County Jail for refusing to answer questions. The woman, whom the News-Press is not naming at the request of the court, told Lee County Circuit Court Judge Bruce Kyle she was scared to testify.

The woman lived in the Harlem Lakes community when she was a child before moving to another state when she was in the second grade. She eventually returned to Lee County and settled in the area, but not in the community where police officers say the Lake Boyz operate.

The woman testified she had a "friend with benefits" type of relationship with Diante Davis, 21, one of the co-defendants in the trial. James Brown, 23, Kwameaine Brown, 25, and Eric Fletcher, 30, are also defendants in this trial. They are four of 23 men accused of being gang members with the Lake Boyz.

The woman is a critical witness in the case. At least three defense attorneys for the other men awaiting trial were present to hear her testimony.

The woman testified about "pillow talk" by Davis saying he was involved in the shooting of Thomas Edison, a man she knows as Hester Red. Edison was shot at the Hook Fish & Chicken Restaurant on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in July 2015.

At the time, Edison was recently released from jail after the state attorney's office dropped charges against him in the death of 5-year-old Andrew Faust. Davis was injured at around the same time, but police found him suffering from a gunshot wound in the Harlem Lakes community.

"He told me he got shot out there," the woman said as she leaned into the dais, holding her clenched fist to her forehead.

Prosecutors are tasked with proving a conspiracy that all of the men's crimes were committed for the organization the Lake Boyz.

While the woman was a key witness for the state, and could place many of the suspects at the Harlem Lakes neighborhood, she was steadfast in the fact she didn't believe Lake Boyz was a gang. She did, however, say that one of the men, Javaris Wardlow, sold drugs in the neighborhood.

"They run together," she said. "Most of them are related that I know of."

She said there wasn't a clear hierarchy and they never had meetings.

"I don't know of them having their own leaders," she said. "They just going to do what they do. They go their own way."

The woman testified she has seen the men throw up an "L" sign with their thumb and index finger.

Twenty-one alleged members of the Lake Boyz have been arrested by Fort Myers police.(Photo: Fort Myers Police Department)

"I've seen people do it, and they don't hang in Harlem Lakes, and they don't hang with these boys every day," she told Joe Viacava, who is representing James Brown. "Just 'cause you throw up the 'L' doesn't mean you're a part of Harlem Lake."

However, Leena Marcos, a state prosecutor, pointed out that the woman said something different when she was deposed.

Marcos showed her the deposition and asked her to remember "exactly" what she said.

"In my statement, I did say that throwing the L's up was gang-related," she said, attempting to continue.

Marcos cut her off and said: "Thank you. The state has no other questions."

Viacava used his re-examination to see if the woman wanted to clear up what she had to say.

"I'm going to comply with y'all, but I don't want to; I don't got nothing else to say about that answer," she said.

The CI's involvement

On Tuesday the witness was taken away in handcuffs for not testifying. But she came back in the evening.

She made it clear she didn't want to be part of the courtroom proceedings.

Attorney David Joffe, representing Fletcher, asked her once every three minutes if she needed to take a break.

No, she said.

"Do you want to be here testifying?" he asked her.

"Honestly, no," she answered. "I'm just here so I can get this over with and go home to my kids."

The woman is a paid informant who began working with police after she witnessed the death of Tresjuan Irvin in October 2015.

"There was a lot going on at the time," she said. "I didn't have anywhere to go with my babies."

Police told her they would help her find a place to live, but that never materialized, she said, because she was far along in her pregnancy and couldn't relocate.

Instead, she said, Wolfgang Daniel, the lead detective in the Lake Boyz case, would come by and give her up to $150.

"It wasn’t like that every time he came to see me," the woman said. "Sometimes he came to see me and he wouldn’t even come ask me stuff."

The woman said about two weeks ago, Marcos, one of the prosecutors, told her she would need to testify in the case. She was asked to watch videos but did not cooperate.

"I told her I was not watching it because I was not going to cooperate," the woman said. "It was like I was told that I could be jailed, and I said I didn't care."

At one point, the woman said, two women told her they would call the Department of Children and Families to take her kids. She told them that didn't need to happen because she had someone who could take care of them.

The woman began to cry then.

"It pissed me off," she said.

Joffe asked her if she perceived it as a threat.

"Yeah, that's my kids. That's all I've got," she said.

She said she wasn't afraid of DCF coming to take her children but that she was afraid of being in jail for contempt for a long period of time and being away from her children.

Samantha Syoen, a spokeswoman for the state attorney's office, declined to answer a question about whether it's customary to threaten a testifying witness with DCF involvement.

"I can’t discuss this case as we are in trial," she wrote in an email.

Jail house calls

After the confidential informant, jurors heard recordings of Fletcher's phone calls to friends and family. The phone calls took almost three hours to listen to. A Fort Myers police detective testified about their importance. The News-Press is not naming the detective because he is undercover.

Fletcher, the detective said, spoke to his brother on the phone about being upset that James Brown left the area after a feud with the rival gang Tat Boyz. Investigators have testified the Tat Boyz operate from the Habitat Beece Village community of Fort Myers.

The feuding incident left Alexis Wilson dead in 2014, the detective testified. James Brown was tried twice but found not guilty in the case.

"He's referring to two separate homicides where two younger females were murdered where Lake Boyz were suspects and Tat boys were in the vehicles," the detective said.

Judge Kyle adjourned for the day shortly after that.

This is the 11th day of the trial, which has stretched far longer than the two weeks it was supposed to last. Kyle has said he plans to hear the case on Saturday and Sunday if it goes that long.

Bob Lee, with the state attorney's office, told Kyle the state planned to rest their case Thursday. At least one more witness, one who is in custody, is set to testify on Thursday